Cho Onarach Ris na Seachd Glasan (As Honest as a Mirror)
by TanisTheNotSoSuperVillain
Summary: Being a kid is hard. Being a kid stuck with a borderline mad scientist (for pay!) is harder. It's not the hardest thing he has to deal with. Not even close.
1. Tàrr Às!

Title: Get Lost!

I did some research in how orphanages and such worked, but... I realized that nothing in the DC universe is remotely realistic anyway. Why stifle myself with realism? Or canon? Just roll with it, people.

5°C = about 40°F, for the record.

 **-Chapter 1-**

Despite the conspicuous lack of rain, Evan's clothes were soaking. He rather regretted leaving his shoes behind, but you can't blame a kid for being in a hurry. It's pretty dark after all, and Evan was still just young enough for there to be scary things in the shadows. Not monsters, perhaps, but he was just able to quantify the fear of what could be there, out of his line of sight. He hadn't intended to be out so late; he hadn't intended to leave his room at all, after dinner. Was anybody looking for him? Would anybody notice he wasn't there? The conflict between wanting someone to notice he was gone and the desire to crawl into a hole and disappear forever was essentially the only thing keeping him moving. The muddier his feet got running through the grass and moss on his way to the other end of town, however, the more exhaustion settled into his bones, the more his muscles ached, the more tired he felt, and he started slowing down.

He skids to a stop and practically falls on his face when he realizes that he's actually been heading the wrong way. He wants to throw a fit about unfair it is. Nonetheless, the loss of his momentum means that he now slowly trudges down a cracked, uneven alley, head hanging, lip bitten to hold in tears.

When he gets to the end of the alley, he stops. It's late. Far too late to head back home. Without strenuous exercise, the freezing damp and weight of his clothes becomes overwhelming. He can find home tomorrow. He needs a place to sleep tonight. He's not in a position to be picky about it.

He has enough thought power left after today to not just lie on the ground where he is; it's October, it has to be about 5°C. Not really a nice time to be sleeping outside in wet clothes. If he can find some sort of abandoned building, that'd be great; he's on the edge of town in a seedy area, a place all the kids are told not to visit alone. There has to be a place to squat for a night. Even better if no one else is occupying it, so that he doesn't have to answer any questions.

He racks his brain for a location for a moment-a lot of businesses in this part of town have closed down recently, haven't they? or were they all being bought up by some engineering thing?-but he starts when a light turns the corner and washes over him. He jumps back against the wall, hoping that the car will just drive by his location. The car instead gently pulls into a parking spot near a hardware store across the street. Two men get out of the car, one who is handsomely nondescript and the other who is tall, lanky, and dressed far too well to be from this part of town. Or in it, frankly.

"Nathan," said the tall man, "are you sure this is the right time? It's after hours."

"I can see that. 'Course." said the other man. "There's a light on, see? We can order all the screws we want, Willie."

The tall man looks slightly disdainful. "We need more than screws to fix things."

"Well, ask him about it. He's finally giving us the time of day." The nondescript man pauses, then shrugs halfheartedly. "Night."

"Enlightening." the tall man said listlessly, and motions for Nathan to follow him. "Let's go before he changes his mind and disappears on us." Evan takes their relative distraction as his opportunity to back down the alley he came down, being extremely careful not to kick any rocks. When he reaches the end, he makes a hard left.

Of course, while Evan avoided notice, he wasn't any closer to figuring out where he should go. He shivers.

It feels like he wanders aimlessly forever, but then he spots it. Down another alley, one almost half-sized compared to the others he's wandered through today, is some sort of abandoned shack, hidden behind other, slightly newer buildings. The door has the tattered remains of police tape from at least a few months ago, and the windows are boarded over. He runs over and quickly circles the building, hoping for an open window, but they were all sadly intact. He did, however, find what seemed to be a hole in the lip of the roof that looked promising. The lot, tiny as it was, was full of junk. Evan sought out the sturdier looking stuff and stacked a fair amount of things next to the wall. He climbs up carefully and jumps the rest of the way, grabbing hold of the wall and pulling himself up through the hole, pushing what little insulation there was out of the way. He tumbles over the edge without any level of grace and falls onto an old couch. The couch smells like old and dirt and insulation and he's never been so happy to be on a couch in his life.

It's not as dark as he thought it'd be. When he looked through the cracks in the window boards before breaking in he couldn't see anything, but in truth every window had blinds that were angled to allow moonlight inside. He could see that the shack was filled to the brim with wires and scrap metal and what could only be described as electrical knick-knacks. Bulb-less lamps, old radios, old computer monitors... it was a garage sale waiting to happen. The place was surprisingly well organized, all things considered, seeing as nothing fit together cohesively.

Looking around the room some more, he noticed that the couch was not the only piece of furniture in the room. Across the room were three desks sat together in a U-shape. They were obviously not from a set-one looked more appropriate for a teenage girl's room than whatever this place was supposed to be, at least-but they were all roughly the same height, and the rolling office chair probably sat reasonably comfortable at all of them.

On the right side of the room seemed to be a tiny kitchen; a wall-hanging sink, a vintage fridge, and a large set of cabinets that had some cheap, college student level cooking equipment laying on it. He was tempted to rummage for food, but he kind of feared what could be found in this fridge. The other end of the room had a cheap metal door.

This place would be great to stay at, if not for the walls. The walls were covered by mirrors and other assorted types of glass, of all shapes and sizes. It looked like someone had spent a lifetime to dig through peoples' trash for their old glass; many mirrors were cracked, if not outright missing pieces, and broken shards were haphazardly taped to the wall. Seeing his own face in so many places, from so many angles, was slightly nauseating in ways he couldn't describe.

Nonetheless, he rises to his feet on shaky legs and walks over to the metal door. He pulls it open before he can chicken out to reveal... a bed. Literally just a bed. The bed blocked one of the doors; the door to the outside, Evan realized. No wonder he couldn't shove it open earlier.

The room is tiny-barely enough room around the single bed to scoot over to the other door. A tiny bathroom. A corner toilet/sink combo and what might count as a shower, if one stretched the imagination. Everything, ceiling to walls to floor, was covered in cheap tile. Evan didn't want to think about water at the moment, and quickly shut the door, turning back toward the bed.

The bed didn't look like it had been slept in recently, which was both comforting and creepy, seeing how pristine it was. In the end, however, tiredness won and Evan quickly crawled underneath the covers.

He drifts into a dreamless sleep.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

The next day, he wakes up bright and early. Which is rare.

He sits up and rubs his eyes, debating what to do next. His stomach rumbles and he supposes that settles the matter. He slips out of bed and slides his tired feet across the floor, lazily pushing the door open.

He slowly scans the room, starting when he realizes all is not how he left it last night. There was a man with dark hair laying on the couch, curled up lightly to fit, laying on his side. Evan froze, praying that the man wouldn't wake up somehow and notice him, but the man didn't move. Thousands of questions fly through his brain, but nothing sticks, displaced by the fast-rising panic of getting caught.

Evan quickly decides that he wants nothing to do with this place and moves to leave-but. There's only one way out. Above the couch. That the man is sleeping on.

He waffles for a long moment, deciding exactly how to go about escaping, and Evan creeps toward the foot of the sleeping man. He gingerly places a foot on the couch's armrest, grabbing the back of the couch with his hands, and hoists himself onto the arm. He sways dangerously for a moment but regains his balance, staring worriedly at the man's sleeping face. He doesn't even sniff. All the better for Evan. Finally, something goes his way.

Standing on the back of the couch is trickier-he can't leverage well with the wall in his way, but he manages. He thinks that he can jump up to the edge of the hole, like from the other side. The problem is he can't bend so well with the wall right there, so he tries to turn sideways, with one foot in front of the other, planning to jump and twist at the top to grab the ledge.

Satisfied with that plan, he does so.

What he didn't plan for is that the couch was nowhere near as tall as the stack of junk he used to get inside the building; all he managed to do was hit his knees on the wall, hands nowhere close to the edge. Instead, his foot slips on the couch upon landing back on it, and he falls back-of-skull first onto the sleeping man.

The man, now awake, briefly panics and twists off of the couch, throwing Evan off of him. "What the _fuck_?!" the man yells hoarsely, and Evan is so stunned that he can't come up with a response. Frozen like a deer, he stares at the man's furious face.

"Uh." Evan says intelligently, trying to make 2+2 equal 4 again. The man's eyes scramble around wildly, but focus again on Evan's face with terrifying clarity. "What the _fuck_." the man says again, breathless, voice no longer angry. If anything, he sounds amazed. "Are you _real_?"

"No." Evan says automatically, not really processing what's being said.

The man sits up languidly, staring down at Evan with a mix of wonder and confusion. Then his face steels, and he frowns. "How did you get in here?"

Evan points above the couch. "I... climbed over that hole up there." Evan sits up and fidgets while the man stares at the now-obvious hole. "m'sorry." he adds when the silence starts to bother him.

The man sighs and looks off in a random direction. His eyebrows are furrowed deeply. "I wondered why it was so cold in here last night..."

The silence is heavy for a long moment. And then another. Evan picks at the fraying end of his shirt sleeve, avoiding eye contact. He's brought back into the moment when the man claps his hands together loudly. "Well then! My name's Sam. I'm probably going to be living here for a few months. Let's say we get some breakfast, yeah?"

Sam doesn't wait for a response as he cheerfully pushes himself up off the floor with surprising grace, and quickly turns toward the kitchen section of the room. Evan slowly rises and pads over quietly, trying to stay out of the stranger's line of sight. It doesn't work. His stomach growls loudly, and Evan flushes as Sam turns his head around to look at him.

"I haven't done any real grocery shopping since I moved in here this week." He says with a slightly apologetic look. "...so I hope you like toast."


	2. Adhbhar Breithneachaidh

_Title: Adhbhar Breithneachaidh (Food for Thought)_

If it makes you feel any better, it feels like busywork to Evan, too.

 **-Chapter 2-**

Breakfast is awkward. They eat standing by the counter, Sam not even bothering to ask how Evan prefers his toast, buttering a piece for him and handing it to him without looking in his direction. Evan rocks back and forth on his feet, torn between annoyance and relief, and grabs his toast without a word.

"So why did you go to all the trouble to get in here?" Sam asks bluntly, turning to stare directly at Evan's face. "I can't imagine what you were doing out so late. Early? Ah, hell, who am I to talk." he says, stuffing his face with food.

"Home was too far away."

"Couldn't call anybody?"

"Didn't wanna get in trouble."

Sam whistles lowly. "I know that feeling." He continues to stare, then nods to himself, throwing the bread and butter in the fridge. "Alright then."

He wanders off, apparently considering a single piece of buttered toast sufficient food for the morning. He doesn't even offer Evan a drink.

Sam disappears behind a stack of crap, and for a while all Evan can hear is the sound of someone shifting metal pieces around. Deciding it's safe to snoop, he walks around a stack of old speakers and radios, admiring the exposed wires and various bits he didn't understand. Evan stands on his toes to grab a circular radio off the pile, being as careful as humanly possible. He panics slightly when the pile starts to lean, but a gentle push settles it back into place. Evan turns the radio over and over in his hands as he heads back to the couch, flopping onto his back. The radio reminds him a bit of a Rubix cube. It has a variety of twistable sections of varyingly colored cubes. The sections only move in two directions, however-left and right, as the speaker portion doesn't split into smaller pieces. Evan lets the sound of shuffling and metal wash over him as he mindlessly twists the slats around.

He should leave. If no one has noticed the fact he's gone yet, someone will, eventually. And once they do, they'll try to find him. And if they find him, they'll want to know why he left in the first place. And if they ask where he went...

He'll make something up. No one takes anything he says seriously, anyway. If anyone asks, then he just wanted an excuse to get out of his room and went for a walk. Late at night. Everyone does stupid stuff when they're kids, right? It's completely believable.

He got lost. It's true enough.

Something crashes and Evan jumps, reflexively perching on the back of the couch. He makes eye contact with Sam, who looks angry. But Sam just deflates. "Listen, kid, we got up a little late. If you take a shower now, we can go out for lunch, alright?"

Evan thinks. He nods, then realizes "But my clothes are dirty. And I don't have shoes."

Sam looks at nothing for a moment. "I'll deal with it. Just go shower."

Evan slowly slides down the couch and quickly walks toward the door. He briefly considers stripping in the bedroom, but decides he might as well try to clean his clothes off in the shower. A wise decision, seeing as Sam pops his head through the door. "Forgot to mention! Towels are kept underneath the bed. Soap's in the shower already. I don't use shampoo or anything, sorry." He says, looking moderately embarrassed about it. Something in his face makes Evan giggle, and Sam relaxes a little. "Take your time-uh. Well. What's your name?"

Evan freezes, _don't trust strangers_ bouncing around his brain. "I'm." Evan says intelligently, "I'm Evan."

"Evan." Sam repeats, more trying the name out than confirming it. "I'll remember that. Now! Shower!" Sam looks at his disheveled, somewhat muddy bed pointedly. "Before you ruin anything else."

Evan dodges into the bathroom, embarrassed.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

Evan makes _some_ headway with the "cleaning his clothes" idea, but ultimately, soap, his hands, and a relatively weak stream of water could not remove the mud stains from his clothes. He thinks he did a better job with his skin.

Of course, he hadn't quite thought out the logistics of getting his clothes wet; after last night, he wasn't looking forward to having to wear wet clothes again. He sits on the cold tile of the bathroom and wills his clothes to dry, but when that doesn't work, decides to ask Sam if he happens to have a hair dryer in his piles of junk. There's probably one in there somewhere. It might even work.

He peeks out of the bathroom door, debating whether to yell or to string water everywhere, when he notices the bed has been stripped of its sheets. He opens the door further, realizing that there's clothes sitting on the bed. And new shoes.

Well, "new" was probably being generous. They were likely taken from some sort of secondhand shop, considering how fast they showed up, but they were clean enough. The shoes didn't have any holes in them and looking at the soles, Evan didn't notice anything wrong with them. He quickly dries and gets dressed, not daring to question having something _dry_ to wear.

He find Sam hunched over a desk, comparing two pieces of paper with great intensity. Evan clears his throat and Sam jumps, quickly twisting around to look at him.

"I see it all fits." He ventures.

Evan shrugs. "Better than some things I've got." Sam seems to get a bit lost in thought at that, but Evan pulls him back. "So, where're we goin'?"

"Not sure yet." Sam admits, "I have a couple things I need to drop off first. I guess we'll eat wherever we end up."

Sam digs under his desk and pulls out a backpack, shoving a few things on his desk into it. The stuff is obviously made from the assorted junk, but Evan doesn't recognize anything. Sam slings the bag around and loops it around his arms in a practiced motion, already heading towards the door. "C'mon, Evan! Let's get going."

Hurrying to grab his Rubix Radio, he follows without a word.

Though he did laugh when Sam managed to hurt himself trying to move the bed away from the door.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

" _I have a couple things I need to drop off first_ " turns out to take much longer than the wording implied. And a lot more _walking_.

Apparently, Sam dislikes being enclosed in small spaces with large numbers of people, so the bus was out. ( _Nothing good has ever come from a person riding the bus!_ ) Seeing as Sam lived in an old shed, Evan figured he didn't have a ton of money. So a cab was out. Meaning walking was how they would manage. Sam, at least, had ran this circuit enough times to have optimized the route. So he said.

Evan didn't want to know what the first few trips had been like.

The trip itself was unimaginably boring. It was a repetitive cycle of walking, walking, walking, walking, circling, knocking, and _maybe_ handing off an item if someone actually opened the door. Sam gave Evan the very important (and boring) task of striking out locations on a notepad if they actually saw somebody. More often than not, however, no one showed up at the door, and more than once the wrong person showed up at the door. When that happened, Sam would promise to come back another time. To Evan, it seemed needlessly inefficient. Couldn't Sam invest in a phone to call and see if these people were there?

"Alright kiddo, there's only one more stop left." Sam says cheerfully. Evan groaned.

"Are you sure." Evan says dryly, voice barely betraying his frustration. When they stop at a corner, he peers into a nearby window. "It's... 3:48. We gon' have lunch or what?"

Sam was not impressed or affected by Evan's tone. "We had breakfast at 11. You're not going to starve just yet."

"We didn't get up _that_ late! 'Sides, a toast ain't breakfast! 'S a snack!"

Sam just hums at him and walks across the street.

The last leg of the trip ends up being the longest, and the one that takes them the furthest out of the bad part of town. They end up in that strange world between the normal world and the dangerous one, where normal people apartments transition to rat-infested holes.

For once, Sam walks up to the front door to a building. The small building in question is dark purple, and all of the windows are blacked out with dark curtains. The building is covered with all sorts of deep blue symbols and patterns, outlined with such a rich color that it is almost invisible to the eye without tilting the light in a specific way against the paint. Sam doesn't even knock, just walks into the building like he's been there 1000 times before. Evan scrambles after him.

The inside of the building is more or less like the outside in tone: the floors consist of intricate tile mosaic, the walls covered in a dark velvety material from ceiling to floor, the lights turned down low. The air was musty and mothball-y. The wood portions of the furniture had intricate symbols carved into them, and much of it also had metal gilding. Sam speaks quietly to a blonde woman sitting at a comically small desk, who nods at him and disappears behind another maroon, heavy curtain.

"Where are we?" Evan whispers.

"A fortune telling house." Sam murmurs back. Evan makes a face and Sam smiles at him gently. "Don't worry, it's all complete horseshit. People are quick to take anything they don't understand and believe it to be mystical or supernatural. Smart people-like the people here-take advantage of peoples' stupidity to make money. I was asked to create a hologram projector for them. People believe what they see, not what makes sense."

"How's a hologram supposed to make people believe a fortune?"

"The truly stupid will believe anything in front of their face, no matter how silly it is." Sam says seriously.

A soft rustle of fabric catches their attention. A woman with pink hair tied into a pinned up braid emerges, and she's not as old as Evan expected, what with the mothball smell everywhere. She looked to be in her early 20s. She looks down at Evan and then narrows her eyes at Sam impatiently.

"I'm not paying you to stand here. I'm paying you to set this up for me." She quickly twists around, apparently done with pleasantries, marching back behind her curtain. The blonde woman from earlier lets out a deep breath and sits gingerly in her chair. Sam rolls his eyes and gives Evan a _wait here_ gesture, eyes pleading with him to be patient just a little while longer.

Evan rocks on his feet, not sure what to do by himself. The blonde woman has gently started back in on whatever paperwork she was filling out, obviously not interested in talking to him. He decides to wander through the doorway with the pinned open curtains, reasoning that if it's open it's okay.

The rest of the rooms look like something in a cheap movie set. While different rooms contained unique furniture, nothing deviated from the dark, gloomy, mystical feel. Every room was tiny, made smaller by the massive amounts of furniture, fabric, and trinkets cluttering the space. Evan starts making his way back to the entrance, but as he pulls aside one of the curtains he finds a finely dressed man.

The man is somewhat older and dressed in a dark suit, complete with cane. He even wears a top hat. Evan stares at him wide-eyed before hastily backing out of the doorway to let him through.

"My my." the man says, "No need to be so shy, boy."

The man nods at Evan politely, then walks toward a chest of drawers. He opens the second drawer and reaches his hand in, pulling out a couple palm sized bags with long drawstrings. He pushes the drawer closed without a sound. Tucking the bags into an inner breast pocket, he strides confidently back towards the door, but stops suddenly at the frame, head tilted in slight thought. The man's eyes lock onto Evan. He then twists off the top of his cane, pulling a thin chain out of the stem and reassembling his cane in an oily motion. The man hold out the chain expectantly.

"Now now." the man says, "Take it before I change my mind. You need all the help you can get, my boy."

Evan bristles, offended and embarrassed in equal amounts. After an intense staredown in which the finely dressed man's eyebrow very nearly arches off his face, Evan relents and takes the chain. The man straightens and turns on his heel, walking out the door as if he had never acknowledged Evan at all.

The chain is similar to much of the decor, in that the chain has an engraved pattern across every link. Evan takes off his shoe and wraps the chain around his ankle, deciding to keep it. When he stands back up, he can't help but wonder if his eyes have finally adjusted to the darkness.

He feels a little bad, seeing Sam waiting for him back at the entrance. The blonde woman apparently hadn't seen fit to grace Sam with conversation, either. He feels a bit less bad when Sam grins at him.

"Guess who just got paid? This guy." Sam jabs a thumb at himself happily. "Guess who gets something to eat now?"

"This guy?" Evan says hopefully, copying Sam's thumb action. It makes Sam laugh a little.

"And I know exactly where to go."

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

Evan was less pleased to realize that getting food required more walking.

He was never going to walk again. Evan swore it.

Surprisingly, they continued their way into the less sorry part of town. It made some kind of sense; the better restaurants would be in a better part of town, wouldn't they? The problem with this is that with the better part of town comes _more people_ , and more people means that Evan has to stick slightly closer to Sam than he strictly wants to. They eventually make their way to a small, hole-in-the-wall sandwich shop with outside dining.

Of course, now that they have nothing to distract themselves from each other, the silence is awkward and quiet. Evan trails his fingertips across the soft tablecloth.

"So..." Sam starts, "Have you always lived in town?"

"...yeah. Yeah, I have. Where are you from?"

"I'm from Missouri." When Evan gives him a blank stare he amends, "It's part of the United States."

"Why'd you come _here_? Don't tourists usually stick to huge cities and landmarks?"

"I'm not a tourist, I'm an electrician. And an inventor, on the side. The inventor part tends to be the more lucrative job, actually."

"Why not just invent stuff all the time? And what's lucrative mean?"

"Lucrative means it brings in a lot of money. At least comparatively." Sam says with a shrug. "And the kind of inventions I create are not... consistently requested. A person'll need one thing or a whole list of things, and I can make them for the right price fairly quick, but there'll sometimes be months before anybody gets ahold of me. Then everybody will be asking for shit at once. So I have to do something when business lulls."

"What kind of stuff do you invent?"

"Anything asked of me, really. No one's asked me to make anything I haven't been able to turn out. Of course," he says with a tilt of his head, "the best projects are the ones I do for myself."

"Like what?" Evan asks, curious as to what Sam could make out of garbage. He's seen the sort of things Sam creates, of course, but he's never seen any of them in action.

Sam thinks for a moment, then digs in his backpack, pulling out a thin metal box and drops some change on the table. He sifts through the coin pile for a moment before holding up a coin.

"This is the dullest coin I have on hand at the moment," he says, "and the top half of this box slides open with a push of a thumb." He drops the coin into the open slot and snaps it shut, holding the box up vertically so that Evan could see the back of it. "You can put in more than one but I haven't worked out all the kinks in doing multiples, yet. Once you put something in it, you drag your finger down this blue line and you're done." Sam holds out the box closer to Evan and slides it open. Inside, the dull coin has been polished to perfection. Evan hesitantly pinches the coin between his fingers, careful not to touch the faces, and holds it up into the light."

"Wow." He says, turning the coin this way and that. "How'd you do that?"

"Hard light scubbing." Sam says simply. "Only works on metallic materials."

Sam hands Evan the coin box and let's him shine a few coins, but the novelty wears off fast.

"I don't really get the point of this, though." Evan says, handing Sam the box and placing his newly shined coins back into the coin pile. Sam shoves both things in his pocket. "I mean, a coin's a coin. Why bother? S'not like people won't take a normal one."

"It's always good to be prepared. Besides, there's no reason not to look neat."

Evan's mind boggles at how having shiny coins is supposed to make a person prepared for anything, but opts not to comment on it. It's probably not smart to antagonize the guy who's buying you food.

Before the silence can become oppressive again the waitress backs out the door with their food. She stares non-subtly at Evan, eyes flickering from Evan's face to the food. When she hovers slightly too long after dropping things off, Sam turns to face her politely. Before he can say anything she pipes up quickly with "Is there anything else I can do for you two?"

"No." Sam says politely, but firmly. "This is perfect, thank you."

The woman wrings her hands, eyes flickering from Sam to Evan and back again before her shoulders slump a little and she excuses herself. Evan only remembers to breathe out once she's no longer visible through the windows. When he turns back to look at Sam, Sam's chin is resting on the back of his hands, eyes locked onto Evan gently. The moment passes quickly, however, as Sam picks up his sandwich and starts eating like everything is normal.

Evan follows Sam's example.

"We're going t' have to address this eventually." Sam murmurs after swallowing his food.

"...I know." Evan says back. He just doesn't want to.


	3. A' Ghoimh

_Title: A'_ Ghoimh _(The Pain/Grudge/Malice/Spite)_

God I hope that chapter title is written properly. Consonant mutations are hard if it's not your native language. If anyone speaks Scottish Gaelic, hmu if I got it wrong. I am a mere student.

We're getting a taste of the less pleasant side of things. Hopefully, everyone will live.

 **-Chapter 3-**

After they finish eating, they manage to leave quickly and quietly. Sam yawns and stretches as they exit the building.

"Didn't get enough sleep?" Evan asks.

"Mm, whose fault is that?" Sam says. When Evan's face falls, he backtracks. "Don't worry about it. In fact, let's worry about you."

Evan falls into step beside Sam in silence, but Sam pushes forward. "So I saw you on the news this morning."

 _That_ got Evan's attention. "You _what_?"

"Relax. Everything's fine," Sam says, "If you're wondering why this morning took so long, it's because I took the long way to most of our stops."

" _Why?_ "

"You haven't once asked to go home or... anywhere. I assumed there was a reason you were not interested in leaving or returning to that Hannah woman I saw." Sam eyeballs Evan closely, watching him panic slightly, then glances back toward the rapidly disappearing restaurant. "Of course, I'm not the only person who saw the news this morning. So I took the routes that had minimal people and, more importantly, minimal security cameras. An eye witness sighting is almost comically unreliable if there's nothing else to support the claim. And let's be honest: you're kind of a generic looking kid. You're not wearing clothes that anyone has ever seen you in before. You're relatively comfortable in following me around, or at the very least, you're not acting like you're following me against your will. No one who sees you could 100% positively identify you, I think."

"...Miss Hannah is looking for _me_?" Evan says worriedly. He pauses for a long beat. "You know where all the security cameras are?"

"Of course not." Sam says, amused. "I know which buildings have them. Security camera placement is relatively standard; a camera pointed straight into an alleyway isn't much use on a normal day, now is it? It's easy to guess which areas are going to have many cameras and which will have none. Comes with age and experience."

"What was Miss Hannah saying about me?" Evan asks, saving the camera questions for later.

"The usual drivel when children go missing." Sam says with surprising casualness. "Mostly near-crying and pleas for information. The police officer spoke more than her. She was rather quiet." Sam purses his lips for a minute before continuing. "You were kind of an afterthought, actually. I'm not surprised that only one person has acted strangely near you today."

Evan was a tad offended. "Afterthought? If she's looking fer me, how would I be an afterthought in the story?"

Sam looks quite unimpressed by Evan's questions. "Keep your voice down. And I think you know why," he says ominously. "Either way, we need to be careful. Bad things will happen to both of us if you get recognized. So let's try to stay out of trouble, shall we?" He waits until Evan graces him with an unsure nod, then adds, "Seeing as I'm answering all your questions, why not answer a couple of mine?"

"Oh. Okay? Depends on the question, I guess."

"Hey now, I've been nothing but honest with you thus far," Sam teases, "be a little grateful. Let's start with who 'Miss Hannah' is to you."

Evan frowns. "I don't like her."

"That's not what I asked."

"She's... I live with her. An' some other kids."

"Foster parent?" Evan looks at Sam in surprise, who shrugs. "I kind of got that vibe. You look nothing like her, anyway. The fact that you call her 'Miss' means that you're not very close to her personally, so she's not your actual mother. You mention 'some other kids,' again impersonal, so not siblings. Not huge leaps I'm making, here."

"I used to live with someone else. Mrs. McCulloch. She's not here anymore." Evan says sadly. "When I moved in with Miss Hannah I had to get rid of most of my stuff 'cuz she didn't have room fer it. Her husband ain't hardly around. An' the kids that already lived there're mean. There's a girl named Amie who keeps tryin' ta push me down the stairs. An' a kid named Joshua who-"

Sam doesn't seem phased when Evan cuts himself off. Instead, he lets the silence blanket them both.

They manage to make it back to the wrong side of town when Sam looks up at the looming clouds. "Well, we had a whole three days without rain. Figures it'd start now." He stops and glances around, then squints into the distance. He waves a hand in front of Evan's face, forcing him to look up from his shoes hesitantly.

"We need to walk fast, I think," Sam says apologetically.

Evan trots after Sam, both of them breaking into a short sprint when the rain starts suddenly. They manage to make it into an electronics store before they get completely soaked. A disinterested cashier half nods at Sam, then goes back to texting on his phone. Sam maneuvers them to the other side of the store, feigning looking at the displays.

"What was Mrs. McCulloch like?" he asks quietly, not even trying to look in Evan's direction.

Evan doesn't respond immediately. How do you describe a whole person in a few sentences? "She was really quiet," he starts softly, unsure. "And she never ever held a grudge, not even when the other person was a jerk. She wanted to believe the best in everybody. I always said it was a dumb thing to do, because it _is_."

"It is."

"But she always wanted me to believe the best in other people, too. Not pannin' out too well, that." Evan takes a deep breath, not wanting to taint his memories of Mrs. McCulloch with petty, imaginary arguments, nor wanting Sam to think he was talking about him. "She was real old-fashioned. She cooked almost all our food with cast iron pans. She knitted and sewed and made blankets for homeless people as a hobby."

"That does sound old fashioned."

Evan began speaking a little more confidently, getting into the swing of it. "She wasn't that old, though! She used to say that ever since she was a wee lass she knew she was going to be that sweet old biddy at church who'd bring in sweets an' all that every other week. Except she was going to have better hair. She didn't have many vices, but her hair was one of 'em. We had this mean old couple who'd probably been together since the 1800's, and they'd get on her case about her constantly changing hair." He laughs. "Once she dyed her hair this awful pink with green stripes and purple tips, just to do somethin' different. The old man nearly had a heart attack when he realized who it was."

Sam smirks a little. "I'm having a hard time imagining what that would look like..."

"Don't." Evan says, grinning back. "It was terrible. It'd be bad on a kid. On a woman? Worse! I was ashamed to be seen with her." He crosses his arms and wilts a little. "I was really dumb."

"...what were her other vices?"

"Huh?"

"Her other vices, as you put it," Sam says, "Liking to have her hair done is hardly a vice. Give me the good gossip."

"Uh," he stalls, wracking his brain. "She had this weird thing about winter coats? Because she could sew really well she'd wear her clothes until it was threads, but every Christmas she got a new winter coat. She'd donate last year's to the homeless shelter, 'cause it was still a perfectly good coat. But every single Christmas, she'd buy herself a brand new one. An' not a cheap one. She'd buy these expensive outdoor coats, not like a fashion coat. Didn't matter that she looked like a stuffed pillow, she wanted something warm."

"Any idea why she wanted a new coat so bad?"

"She told me that when she was a kid, she didn't have a coat for winter for a few years. Once she got some money of her own, she bought one. So I guess it was just a yearly ritual?"

"More like her measure of success, I would guess." Evan stares at Sam blankly, who adds, "She didn't have one as a kid. As an adult, buying a new coat each year was a reminder of how much had changed in her life. It was a renewable trophy. Rather petty... but frankly, not a horrible vice. She sounds like quite a nice person."

"She was." Evan agrees, going quiet again.

They wander the store together, poking and prodding at the various merchandise. Sam asks for Evan's opinion on a few items, with lackluster responses. Sam doesn't seem bothered by the disinterest in his attempts at conversation, and Evan supposes he should just be happy that Sam isn't pushing for him to talk more.

They eventually make their way to some tall, locked display cases, containing arduino kits and the like. Evan crouches to get a closer look at a robot kit, leaning his forehead against the glass in an effort to read past the glare.

"I think," Evan starts, licking his lips before trying again, "I think I got this one for Christmas one year. Mrs. McCulloch helped me put it together 'cuz I didn't know how to solder and she burnt her finger three times. In the exact same spot. So we never actually finished it, but we did get the light up top to light up, so we called it a win."

"Mm. Let me tell you, these kits are nothing special," Sam says dryly, "I could make something more advanced out of a toaster and a hard drive." When he sees Evan open his mouth in retaliation, he tacks on, "But there's something to be said for... sentimentality, I guess. Sometimes the process of making something is worth more than the end result."

Evan turns back to the case. "Miss Hannah threw out my robot because she thought it was broken trash. She didn't even ask me about it."

Sam's eyes flick from Evan to the case, and he eventually sighs harshly, mashing his eyes tightly shut in annoyance. "Fine. Wait here."

A few moments later Sam reappears with the disinterested cashier, who looks like he wants to either be at home or in a morgue, with no real preference of which he got. Sam shoos Evan away from the case and turns to the employee shortly. "I need two of these robot packs on the bottom."

The cashier fishes a key out of his pocket and hands one box to each of them, quickly pulling out his phone as he takes his leave. Evan stares at the box in amazement. He looks up at Sam, opening his mouth to question him, but Sam cuts him off and aggressively points his box at him.

"Let me make one thing clear," Sam says seriously, "These are crap. I am going to show you how crap they are. The first you are going to do as the box instructs. This will be your replacement for the toy that Miss Hannah threw out. Think of it as your new, _barely functional_ trophy." When Evan goes to argue, Sam rolls his eyes. "Before you even start with me, yes, I am aware that ' _it's not the same_ ' or whatever your argument was going to be. However, that is where the second toy comes in," he says, waving his box absently. "The second, I am going to improve upon, so that you will understand how much better someone with actual knowledge of robotics can do. When I am done, you will be so amazed that the stupid box toy will be nothing but a silly memory, and the lack of it will be so insignificant to you that you will feel silly for having ever felt bad about it in the first place."

Evan stares up at him in silence, not sure if he should be offended or not. He wants to be offended, frankly. But on the other hand, he'd rather have a reminder of the things he and Mrs. McCulloch used to do together than nothing at all; he knows he can't get the original robot back...

Also, if he was being honest, he wanted to see what Sam would do to it.

They loiter for a while, trying to wait out the rain, but they eventually meander back to the front of the store, where Sam begrudgingly pays.

Outside, the rain has made everything cool and wet, and Evan shivers slightly. Thankfully, they don't have to go far before they make it to a grocery store, where they buy some food, and then make their way back to the shack.

Evan takes it upon himself to put the food away while Sam digs some garbage out of his garbage stacks, simply flinging pieces he doesn't seem to want on the ground, before gathering his haul in his arms and dropping it on one of his desks. He sits down and rolls up to the edge of the desk, apparently starting in on a project. Evan, naturally, has nothing to do without Sam talking to him. He decides to pick up the things that Sam discarded in his search for parts, moving slowly as to make the task take up as much time as possible.

Even so, it doesn't take long for him to finish. Evan huffs, glaring in Sam's direction for ignoring him, but unwilling to admit that he wants attention. They just spent the whole day together, for God's sake. He should be sick of talking to him. Evan then decides that he's going to grab some food-because they have that now-so he turns quickly and smack straight into a pile of junk. Disoriented slightly, he twists in panic and flails out his arms, tripping over himself and crashing into another pile, knocking it over. The other piles sway like trees in a storm before being bowled over, metal bouncing off concrete so loudly that Evan briefly swears that he's gone deaf. He lays on his back in shocked silence, getting his bearings, before slowly turning his head to look at Sam.

Bastard never even looked up.

Indignation rises in Evan's throat-there's no way that Sam did not notice that noise-and he winces as lurches to sit up. "Thanks for being worried about me!"

Sam flips a piece of paper over. "Hm. Sure. Don't forget to pick it up."

"You could check to see if I'm hurt or somethin'."

"If you were hurt you wouldn't be annoyed," Sam says flatly, distracted, pulling on a pair of goggles.

"What if I got a concussion?"

"You're conscious."

"Or something gouged out my eye?"

"Mm, yeah, it'd be bad."

"What if I got stabbed by a rusty nail? I'd get tinnitus."

"Tetanus. Which you don't have."

"Not _yet_."

"Mm."

"What if I was bleeding?"

"First-aid kit. Under the couch."

"What if I was bleeding a _lot_?"

"Bigger bandages. Or more of them. Physics."

Evan runs a hand through his hair, trying not to give into the impulse to yell. "How in the hell am I supposed to pick this up?"

"I really don't care," Sam says exasperated, finally glancing up from his project. "Just _occupy yourself_ somehow. Please. I have things I need to finish before the day is done."

Evan continues to glare at Sam after he bows his head again, but he eventually gives in with a harsh exhale. He drags himself to his feet and starts to organize the scrap according to similar characteristics: mostly wire parts in one pile, broken appliances another, hollowed out parts a third, and so on. Rather than make towers, Evan tries to make zones, which he hopes will make them less crash-prone. Towards the end he basically gives up on ordering things neatly, and just shoves things across the floor up against the sides of his piles, calling that good enough.

By now it was late enough that light no longer peeked through the cracks in the windows; at some point, Sam had turned on a strange lantern on his desk, which illuminated the area he was in quite well. Not so much the rest of the room. The eerie glow cast shadows across every visible surface, creating the illusion of being surrounded on all sides by amorphous monsters, being watched. The creepiness was amplified by the cool, damp air, and Evan involuntarily shudders as he makes his way to the couch.

He stops on his way to stare at the walls, or rather, at the various shards of glass taped to them. His anxiety from when he first entered returned with a vengeance, the sight of his own face in so many places at once gnawing at him. He can't shake the feeling of being watched, even when he turns away.

He slowly wanders over to a mirror-a real mirror, not just a shard of glass-with fancy gold paint. Or rather, it was gold at one point. Nearly all of the gold had been worn away by time and looked like it could hardly support itself. Despite this, the glass was impeccable. It didn't even have that strange stained effect that older mirrors tend to have. Evan gently removes the mirror from the wall, peering at himself curiously. His face looks so foreign. The best description he can come up with for his hair is 'never brushed', which he tries to comb down with him fingers, but it's pretty futile. His only saving grace is how short it is. He rubs purposefully at the light freckles on his cheeks, making sure that none of it is actually dirt. All that manages to accomplish is picking at a tiny old scab.

He moves as if to place the mirror back on the wall, but he can't bring himself to look away. He frowns harshly, wondering what's so interesting about his own reflection when he realizes that there's _another_ face in the same place as his. It's faint, but it's definitely there. The nervous feeling makes his hands shake involuntarily, but he carefully brings the mirror closer to inspect it. His eyes flick around, trying to look at the mirage-like image in his peripheral vision to make sure he's not just imagining it. While it wavers slightly, it never disappears. The figure is dark and dirty, its hair-or what Evan assumes was its hair-clumped together in uneven lumps. Its mouth is slightly open, showing off its bottom teeth, but one's missing and its tongue is poking through the gap slightly. Evan can't really make out a distinct face, per se, so much as features that Evan does not have are slightly superimposed underneath-or over?-Evan's own image.

He tilts his head slightly, like a dog listening for a sound, unwilling to make eye contact with the mysterious figure in the glass. The longer he looks at it, the more _wrong_ it feels. He feels like he should say something to it. Or that he should throw it across the room and never look at it again. He turns his head to ask Sam if this mirror was some kind of freaky joke, or maybe just to reassure himself that he was imagining things, but before he can make a sound two hands shoot out of the flat, polished surface and grab his neck, squeezing. Evan freezes in shock, only regaining the ability to move when the figure's thumbs dig into his windpipe. He feels an electric surge up his leg and falls to his knees, inadvertently swinging the mirror down onto the concrete floor, shattering it. The hands disappear, fizzling out like a flashlight with dying batteries, and Evan props himself up on one arm, wheezing.

Evan flinches when Sam appears next to him, gently prying Evan's hand from his neck. Evan can barely make eye contact, but Sam's expression was unreadable anyway. They're both silent for a long moment, Evan's heavy breathing already uncomfortably loud. Sam absently sweeps the glass into a pile, and picks little glass pieces out of Evan's hand, patiently waiting for Evan to be able to speak.

"Th-there was," Evan starts wheezing without being prompted, "something. In it. When I looked away it... grabbed me." He coughs roughly. He realizes, after saying it out loud, how incredibly stupid it sounds.

Sam still says nothing, staring directly at the glass. He gently pinches a piece of it between his fingers, bringing it closer. Evan shies away, semi-rationally concerned that the mysterious figure would be able to choke him again. Sam's eyes, however, were shining brightly. He looks back and forth between Evan and the glass before finally settling his gaze on Evan, face a mix between shock and... genuine happiness. Or maybe Evan just imagined it; his thoughts aren't terribly organized at the moment. But as soon as he noticed it, Sam's face squishes into a far more concerned expression, gently tilting Evan's head to look at his neck.

"That's going to look nasty tomorrow," he says.

He gently puts his hands under Evan's arms, pulling him to his feet. They shuffle over to the couch, which Evan sits on while Sam pulls out the first-aid kit. Sam mechanically dresses the nail prints on Evan's windpipe, and wraps a seemingly excessive amount of bandaging around his neck. Sam keeps looking at him like he wants to ask something, but some of his thoughts must show on his face because Sam never even tries. Once he finishes packing everything back into the first-aid kit, Sam fingers the seam of the pack, unsure of what to do next, slightly hesitant to put it away. After a while Sam's foot starts to go numb from the position he's kneeling in, and Sam shoves the pack underneath the couch with a sigh and hops up. He glances at Evan one last time before he leaves to find a broom and dustpan. Sweeping it up doesn't take much time; he hesitates noticeably when going to actually dump the glass in the trash, but nonetheless does so.

Evan doesn't bother paying attention to any of that. Evan feels old and tired. Like his arms and legs would just pop off at the joints if he tried to move on his own. He just feel sore, absolutely everywhere, not just his neck.

He looks up slowly in surprise when Sam plops down next to him, gently placing a box with three colored buttons and a light bulb in his lap.

"I know you don't want to talk right now," Sam starts hesitantly, "and I don't blame you. If fact, I'm not sure you could talk right now, even if you wanted to. But there's a few things I need to know before I can let you rest. I'm going to ask you some yes or no questions; press green if the answer is 'yes,' red if the answer is 'no,' yellow if the answer is 'maybe' or 'I don't know.' The lightbulb will change to whatever color you press. Got it?"

Evan hesitates for a moment before pressing green. Evan tilts his head in confusion for a moment, unsure of the point, before realizing how terrible an idea it is to shift his neck around.

"...yes, I assumed that nodding or shaking your head wasn't a smart idea at the moment. Okay," Sam takes a deep breath, "Did you see something in the mirror?"

'Yes.'

"Did it have anything behind it? A background or anything else in the mirror that was not in this room?"

'No.'

"Did it leave the mirror at all?"

'Yes. Yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyes-'

"Stop mashing the button! The first one made your point," Sam says with slight annoyance before schooling himself back into an impartial interviewer. "Before it left the mirror, did it make any movements without your input, like say, turning its head while you stared straight ahead?"

'No.'

"Was it behind you in the mirror?"

'No.'

"So it was in front of you?"

'No. I don't know.'

"You couldn't tell if it was in front of you or behind you?"

'Yes.'

Sam gets lost in thought for a bit, chewing on his lower lip slightly. When he looks back at Evan he licks his thumb and wipes some blood from his picked scab away, causing Evan to frown a little. He's not sure if he's displeased about it, but frowning seemed like the appropriate reaction.

"Was the image hazy?"

'Maybe.'

"Could you make out what it was clearly?"

'Yes.' Mostly.

"Was there more than one... figure?"

'No.'

Sam frowns at that.

"Did it look like a person?"

Evan takes a moment of deep thought before answering. 'Yes.'

Sam frowns even deeper at that, but his voice drops to an even more gentle tone. "Have you ever seen that person before?"

Evan tries to remember, he really does. It did seem vaguely familiar to him. But for all he could make out of it, there was never some unifying element to make a face out of it. It was like someone blacked out the important parts, leaving Evan's own face visible, but with bits of someone else stapled on awkwardly, or a bad face swap or Photoshop job. It was familiar, but nothing definitive.

'I don't know,' he settles on.

Sam stares at him, assessing. His face softens at Evan's miserable posture. "Are you tired? It's pretty late."

'Yes.'

"Okay," Sam says, "You can have the bed again tonight."

Sam keeps one hand between Evan's shoulderblades, gently steering Evan toward the tiny bedroom. Laying down with a sore neck proves to be a chore, so instead Sam pulls all of the towels out from underneath the bed and props Evan's head up. It's not necessarily the most comfortable, but it would prevent Evan from having to pivot his head or fight gravity's effect on his head in general. Sam also has the foresight to grab some liquid medicine; Evan's not entirely sure what he drinks, but Sam promises that it will knock him right out, which is all he really wants at the moment.

He's starting to drift off when Sam creeps back into the room, carrying a project. He kneels down, and Evan can't see what Sam is doing in the dark, but soon a gentle humming noise fills the room.

Sam slips back out without a word, and Evan slips into unconsciousness.


	4. Am Bàs Os Do Chionn

Rolling out of bed in the morning proves to be difficult, but Evan manages. He's not entirely sure if he feels better, per se, but he doesn't think he's going die.

He kneels for a bit, rubbing the back of his neck gently. His leg is sorest of all, strangely. He gently twists around and sits on the floor, pulling up his pant leg. Surprised at what he finds, he starts trying to peel the chain from his leg. It looks-and feels-like it's been melted into his skin a bit. He grimaces as it's separated from his skin, leaving behind a blistering red groove for every link. Some of the links dig deeper than others, hurting worse, and a few of them even bleed, but Evan patiently pulls them off. He rubs his leg, futilely trying to lessen the sting. The floor is not comfortable, however, and he eventually drags himself up onto the bed.

The chain looks corroded. The strange symbols that used to cover it were no longer readable. He twists it around his hands and through his fingers, feeling the rough texture. On a whim, Evan pulls the chain taut. Given what happened the night before, he half expects something crazy to happen, but the chain just breaks with a dull snap. He sits in confused, contemplative silence, resting his hands in his lap, trying to figure out what this was about.

After a while he realizes that it actually hasn't been silent; the room is filled with a constant, even hum. He shoves the chain in his pocket and walks around the bed. In the corner of the room is a tiny cube with a grate on the front. When Evan gets close, he feels warm air across his feet. The air is uncomfortable on his injured leg, so he flicks the switch on the top, and decides to dig a washcloth out from underneath the bed. No point in letting blood get on his pants if the bathroom is right there.

Hygiene needs met, Evan shivers as he walks into the main room. Sam is, unsurprisingly, seated at his circle of desks, working. What is surprising is the new setup. The teenage girl's desk has been cleared, apart from a few deliberately placed items, including one of the robot boxes. Evan pads across the room, inspecting the new setup curiously. He opens his mouth to ask Sam what the deal is, but when he sees how invested Sam is in his work, he decides against it. Instead, he goes to make breakfast. The only thing Evan can really make is oatmeal, though

The oatmeal's not great-they have neither a stove or a microwave to heat up water with, he had to use the coffee machine-but Evan considers it a win. He scarfs down his food, hungry from not eating dinner the night before. Once done, he dishes up another serving for Sam. On a whim, he grabs an apple for him as well.

He wanders up to the desk Sam is working at, hoping that Sam will glance up when he gets close. He doesn't. Standing there is awkward.

"...hey, Sam."

Sam's head jerks up like Evan snuck up on him, and Evan can't help but smile at his wide-eyed expression. Sam's shoulders relax slowly. "Hey. What's up?"

"I made breakfast."

"Really?" Sam says, "That was nice of you. I, uh. I didn't know you were awake, actually."

"I've been up a while."

"Okay." Sam stares at Evan for a minute before he finally caves and glances at the food. "I'm typically not very hungry in the morning."

"Oh."

"But thanks!" Sam says quickly. "Really."

They continue to stare at each other, unsure of where to go from here. "What did you eat last night?" Evan blurts out.

"I... didn't." Sam admits. "I, well, ate breakfast yesterday, and we had a later lunch than I thought we were going to, so I was pretty alright. And after what happened... I spent the night working. It's not a big deal."

That explanation makes Evan frown, but it's obvious that Sam has no interest in taking the bowl. To save face, Evan sets the food on the edge of Sam's desk. "In case you change your mind," Evan says.

"Fair enough," Sam says. "I do have a project for you when you're done eating, by the way."

"I already ate!"

"Then that works out perfectly! Come over here." Sam says as he pushes away from his desk, rolling his chair towards the new set up. "You're going to make a robot."

Sam patronizingly pats the stool he pulls from underneath the desk when Evan doesn't immediately run after him. Evan glares at him a little as he climbs up the stool, but nearly falls off when the chain and his radio falls out of his pocket, crashing against the floor. Sam sweeps them up for him and sets them on the desk, and he waits until Evan is seated to begin talking.

"You mentioned that you've done some soldering before, right?"

"Mo-Miss McCulloch did it for me." Evan says.

"Congratulations. You're doing it on your own today."

"Uh-!"

"I'll show you how first. Relax," Sam says as he pulls some broken circuit boards and short wires out of a drawer, taking a moment to flick a switch on a metal pen looking thing that was already on the desk. Sam hold up a board. "These are old, fried circuit boards that aren't useful to me anymore, but you'll practice on these. What you want to do it take some of this stuff and rub it over the area you're going to solder on. You can only solder the silver areas. Then you need to have a wire. Most wire is covered in plastic casing, so you use this," he says, handing Evan a pair of strange looking pliers, "to strip the plastic off. Give it a shot."

While Evan fiddles, trying to strip the wire, Sam pours a little water onto a sponge. He taps the metal pen onto the sponge a couple times, frowns, wipes the pen off on a rough pot scour. His eyebrow nearly flies off his face when Evan holds up his handiwork. "You didn't have to strip that much. Keep your clothes on, it's cold in here." Evan stares back at him blankly, but Sam just shakes his head. "Put the wire through the hole a bit and grab that roll of metal string. That's solder. And this," Sam holds up the pen, "is a soldering iron. The tip of it is very hot, so be careful."

Evan unfurls some solder and holds it out to Sam, but Sam scoots closer before gently grabbing it out of Evan's hand. "Now, watch. What you do is touch the solder to where you want it to be, and then you put the iron on top of it. To add more solder, you just shove the solder at it. Like this." In one smooth motion Sam creates a small blop of solder, fusing the wire to the circuit board. He then taps the iron on the sponge again, then twists it into the scour and sets it down again. "The sponge and scrubber are to keep the end clean. You don't have to do it after every single solder, but it's habit to me. Do it pretty often." Sam scoots back out of the way, using the pliers to strip the end of a new wire. "Now, you do it."

"Goes by pretty fast, dunnit?" Evan asks, hesitantly getting into position, gently poking at the already cooled lump of solder with his finger. Sam threads the wire for him and hands him the soldering iron.

"Yup. Go on."

Evan sucks in his lower lip a little as he hesitantly touches the iron to his solder. It melts unbelievably quickly and Evan panics, shoving the solder towards the iron, creating a massive blob. Evan looks up at Sam in surprise.

"Don't worry, there's a way to remove mistakes," Sam says easily. "All you have to do it put some of this roll of special wire on top of it and touch it with the iron again. This stuff soaks up solder." Sam hands Evan the spool of solder remover, then picks up the radio. "By the way, are you keeping this?"

"Uh. Maybe."

"I don't mind if you do."

Evan grins tentatively. "Okay. Thanks."

Sam plays with the radio while Evan slowly tries to solder a few more wires, when he's startled with a pop. Sam opens the speaker, revealing a small compartment. Sam drops something inside before snapping it shut.

"I didn't know that opened! How did you do that?"

"You have to make a pattern to open it. What, did you think the colored sections were for decoration?"

"Aye." Evan doesn't see why he should expect them to have an actual purpose. Sam's mouth thins a little.

"So, think you can handle soldering the robot?"

"I think so."

"Just take it slow and follow the instructions, alright? I'm gonna finish some of my own work."

"Alright." Evan says, pulling the robot out of the box.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

They work in silence. The robot kit only has a series of pictures for instructions, so they're pretty useless in Evan's opinion. Eventually, he grows frustrated with the toy and has to stop. When he looks at Sam's progress he sees that Sam has finished four projects in the time it has taken him to make a little headway. It's somewhere between disheartening and inspiring. Evan hops off his stool, dragging it over to where Sam's completed work is sitting. He can't really tell what anything is supposed to be. Everything covered with glowing lines of color at the seams between plates of plastic and metal. The materials otherwise look old and faded, with clashing browns and greys pieced together, yet shiny as if they were new. Evan reaches towards one, but squawks undignified when Sam's hand snaps out and grabs his wrist.

Sam doesn't even look away from his current project.

Hesitantly, Evan pulls his arm back, slipping it out between Sam's fingers. Sam's hand hovers in place for a long time before it slowly retracts back to him, returning to his work quietly.

Evan drags his chair back to his desk, returning to his work as well. Though he doesn't work up the nerve to actually pick anything up for a long time.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

Evan finally works up the desire to solder again when he's distracted by the sound of a bird-whistle. And then another one.

Sam sits up straight, confused, and Evan can see the moment it dawns on him. He throws himself out of his chair to grab his bag, dumping the contents on the floor. There isn't a ton of stuff in it, which Evan really should have expected, but he also sees-

"You have a i _phone_ /i?" he asks incredulously. It's a pretty dang new one, too. Sam sure as hell didn't build that thing himself. "Since when did you have anything new? Thought you were allergic to new stuff."

Sam looks up at him. "I live i _a bit_ /i like a hermit. I'm not a i _caveman_ /i."

Evan puffs up, fully ready to explain why, yes, Sam is basically a caveman, but Sam holds up a hand to silence him as he answers the phone.

"Hello," Sam starts genially, "...I stopped by yesterday, but I was told that he wasn't there... I have better things to do. If they're not on site when I come by, I'm leaving." Sam rolls his eyes. "I don't care, either hire more reliable people or take care of business yourself. It's really not my problem. I can sell this stuff to someone else if you can't be bothered."

His eyebrows draw together in annoyance at the slightly louder voice on the phone, but he smiles lightly. "Creative! But it doesn't matter to me who ends up with this. Let me know when and where I can to drop this off. Miss it again and lose it." Sam lightly snaps his fingers at Evan, gesturing at him to hand him a pen and paper. "I can't drop it off today. I don't care how soon you need it, I have other appointments to deal with today. No, I'm not making an exception for you. Unless you're ready to drop some cash, of course... Think more in the thousands. Mm no, you're lucky I'm giving you a second chance at all." Sam scribbles something down on the paper. "Make sure someone's there. Goodbye."

Sam sets the phone on the floor and rubs his hands over his face before peeking an eye through his fingers at Evan. "i _Lucrative_ /i it may be, but you have to deal with some of the worst kind of entitled people."

This doesn't stop Evan frowning at Sam, who sighs and looks back at his phone. "Look, I wasn't lying when I said I had appointments today. Same deal as yesterday." Turning back toward his desk, Sam says absently, "Only, y'know, you aren't going with me."

"What?"

"You're injured," Sam says, standing up and dusting off his pants, "and I don't always deal with the nicest clientele. Some can hone in on weakness like a shark."

"I'll be fine."

"Yes, you will." Sam says agreeably, "Because you're staying here. I love it when everyone agrees."

"Not what I meant!"

"You haven't finished your robot yet."

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"It's called maximizing our time," Sam says faux-reasonably, sweeping things back into his bag. "If you come with me, you're not going to do anything but stand around. Your time is better spent finishing your robot. Once it's done, we can discuss how the second one can be improved upon. But that discussion isn't going to happen i _until_ /i you're done. Let's not waste the time." Evan narrows his eyes, but he can't scrounge together a cohesive argument for why he i _should_ /i go.

Sam slings his bag over his shoulder and starts marching towards the piles of crap before realizing he's not going to be able to leave that way. He spins around on his heels dramatically.

He doesn't bother making eye contact with Evan as he leaves.

x-x-x-x-x

Evan tries, really, truly, to focus on the robot, but it's just not happening. After last night, he's not comfortable being left alone here, surrounded by reflections of his own face on the walls. The more he tries to ignore the dreadful feelings, the worse it gets.

He needs a change of scenery.

Since no one else is there, he doesn't bother trying i _not/i_ to run out the door.

x-x-x-x-x

The hardware store is dark, especially for a place that should still be open for another hour. It's only just getting dark outside. In Sam's line of work, that's never a good sign.

Regardless, the owner, one Bradley Bensons, an older man who recently fell on hard times, ordered a material reinforcer from Sam through the grape vine. He figures, as far as Sam could tell, that he could buy cheaper tools and use the reinforcer to make the tools last for a few months after the warranty runs out, providing pseudo-quality tools to people for a fraction of the price. Not necessarily a terrible idea.

He's honestly probably one of the nicer guys Sam has to deal with today. That's not to say that he's normally a squeaky-clean man. Sam's the kind of guy people only 'know' through the friend of a friend of a friend's cousin's friend; in other words, nobody good and wholesome ever finds Sam. And Sam is a curious man.

Bradley Bensons has only existed for a little over 3 years. Before that, he was known as Matthew Canterbury; before that, Alexander Morrison. If you trace back the names and faces far enough, you eventually arrive upon the name Martin Lawrence. According to the documentation, Martin Lawrence apparently sprung into being as a young man. No family, no childhood school photos, nothing. Oh, he was documented, sure, but anyone with a half-decent eye could see that the documents were fake. While that fact is largely—entirely—irrelevant to Sam's business with the hardware store owner, he can't help but wonder what his deal is. Martin Lawrence doesn't even sound like a real name. At least his fake names got better as he got older.

Nicer guy or not, suspicious circumstances with a suspicious man can never end well. But Sam can't afford to stand around. People in this town have honestly had the worst track records with showing up to his drops. He's never had so many no shows in his life! He'd be offended if he wasn't so convinced that everyone in this town had the IQ of roadkill.

Walking through the front door of a drop is something Sam tries not to do, unless the client specifically requests that he do so. He circles the building, trying to see if anybody is inside, anybody at all, but the only sign of life he finds is the back door kicked in.

Great.

He places a cylindrical device under the band of his watch and walks through the door. He doesn't bother trying to be sneaky about it. If someone has already broken into this place, then any alarm systems have already gone off. If the old man is dead, Sam might as well find out now rather than wait to try to pawn off the material reinforcer to someone else. If Bradley Bensons is still alive, he can take whatever money he has left and go. Might even call an ambulance if he thinks the man can be saved.

The lower floor has nothing of interest; just a standard hardware store. He's a little surprised at how… not ransacked the place is. One would assume that the reason someone robs a hardware store is to steal tools. Unless the thief isn't there to rob.

Frowning with annoyance, he hurries up the stairs to the living area, but it doesn't take long to find the man once known as Martin Lawrence.

The cadaver—and cadaver is the right word to use in Sam's opinion, seeing as all the organs have been removed—is hanging upside down from the ceiling, feet bound together and tied to a ceiling fan, hands brushing the ground beneath his head. The scene is bloody, but lacking viscera; his organs are nowhere in sight. Of course, it's somewhat dark in that room, seeing as the blinds are closed.

Sam feels the wall, trying to find the light switch but unwilling to walk across the bloody floor. He flicks a switch, but it's the ceiling fan switch. Before he can realize what's happening, the fan blades unravel the weak rope holding the body up, and the cadaver squashes into the floor with a dull thump. The body, lacking a spine as well, apparently, is squashed at an unnatural angle in about a hundred places—and that's about all Sam can stand to look at.

He likes to think he's pretty desensitized to most scenes of violence and gore he comes across, but he's not a monster. This is gross. And… unsettling.

He hurries back downstairs, wondering what to do from here. He figures that since he won't get paid for this one, he might as well take a few tools to make the trip worth his while.

He peruses the aisles, one to find things he actually intends to use, and two to calm his racing heart.

Once he has an armful, he leans against the glass of the back window, taking a deep breath, eyes closed for a long moment. He's brought out of his reverie when he hears someone banging on the front door, yelling about how he needs some tool he ordered i _today, now, now!_ /i Sam feels a slight twinge of solidarity with Martin Lawrence, or rather, Bradley Bensons, if only for a moment.

Sam halfheartedly taps the cylinder against the glass behind him and disappears, not even with a puff of smoke.


	5. Cha Bhi an Saoghal Fada a'Toirt Lùths Às

Evan's not a complete idiot.

Yes, he's young, impulsive, and foolish, and all those things that come with being young, impulsive, and foolish. But he's not stupid. He took everything Sam said about Miss Hannah appearing on TV to heart. He's a missing child, and if he's seen wandering around alone, the cops will be called on him. Then he'll end up living with her again. He doesn't like her, or her home, but he can't really expect Sam to take care of him forever. Sam's just some guy. Sam has no reason and no obligation to let him live with him indefinitely. He's not even sure why Sam's kept him around so far.

Of course, once he has cleared his head a little, he grows a little curious about how he was an 'afterthought,' as Sam put it, in the first place. He really didn't mean much to her, did he?

He doesn't sit on that thought for too long. He's not going to give a shit what Miss Hannah thinks or feels. Her crocodile tears—and they are most certainly crocodile tears—mean nothing to him. He doesn't have to deal with her any more. Still, thinking about Miss Hannah and all the lies she's surely telling the police and the media makes his fists curl and uncurl over and over again. The motion is a little hypnotic.

Evan slides through alleyways until he comes across a park, but he feels no desire to play with the other children. He's more likely to hit one right now. Instead he skulks past the laughing until he finds a lonely, empty bench. The bench is close enough to the park that he can still hear the joyful screaming of play, but far enough away that he's confident that any parents picking up their children won't notice him sitting there. He leans back, closes his eyes, and relaxes. Just for a moment. Focuses on taking deep breaths the way Mrs. McCulloch taught him to do when he felt like hitting something. Breathing deeply, he tunes out the world. 5 in. 8 hold. 5 out. Repeat until you're not upset anymore.

Eventually he calms down enough to lay on his back, staring at the sky. It's actually kind of pleasant. It's not bright enough that the sun sears his eyes, but it's not cloudy and dull, either. The wind is a little cooler than he likes, but not so much that he can't get comfortable and think.

Evan is under no obligation to stay with Sam. Evan doesn't have to go back. Sam bought that toy robot for Evan, yes, but Evan never asked him to. He never even asked in Evan wanted it. Maybe it was obvious, but still. Nothing is keeping them together, beyond Evan's unwillingness to go back to Miss Hannah. But living with Sam is dangerous. He certainly didn't like Miss Hannah's home, yet no one there ever istrangled/i him.

Doesn't mean one of the other kids hadn't ever i _tried_ /i, but he'd never actually been in danger of dying from that.

Evan doesn't like admitting he was scared. No one does. But Sam is just a little too willing to leave him alone, surrounded by glass, with that strange ithing/i lurking behind it. Sure, he didn't see it at all this morning, but he didn't look for it. He didn't need to. He felt it. It was still there. Evan doesn't know if it was after him or if he was just unlucky enough to pick up that mirror while it was looking out, but there's no way it left completely.

Staying with Sam long term is just a bad idea. But every other option he has takes him back to Miss Hannah's doorstep.

It's an unpleasant thought loop, so Evan pulls the radio out of his pocket and tries to remember the pattern Sam had used to open it. The frustration at his inability to figure it out ends up being great enough that he doesn't even notice the fact that two people have approached him.

Normally, the pair would be content to leave a stranger be, but never let it be said that Hope O'Dare was unobservant.

"Excuse me!" she says gently, "What are you doing all the way over here?"

Evan's head flies up. "What?"

"Away from the other kids," O'Dare clarifies.

Wide eyed at being addressed, Evan lurches upright. The woman has long, vibrant red hair and is dressed reasonably prettily, though certainly nothing fancy. She smiles a genial half-smile at him, patient. Her partner, on the other hand, is dressed in a dark suit, complete with top hat and cane—

"You again?!" Evan blurts out.

"Pardon?" the man says, frowning at him quizzically. "You have seen me before?"

"At the magic shop!" Evan says.

The man's eyes widen marginally as O'Dare narrows her eyes between them. "A i _magic_ /i shop? Sounds interesting, I suppose."

"Calling it a i _magic shop_ /i is a gross overstatement, my dear." The man says, "It was Miss Advika's fortune house, just the other day."

"So you do remember me."

"I do now, yes." The man says with a frown. "You were with a man who was putting in an installation for Miss Advika. His name was… David, yes?"

"Not even close." Evan says, scrunching up his nose. "Can I ask you somethin'?"

"I'd prefer if you didn't."

"Richard!" O'Dare says, "A question isn't going to kill you. What do you need, sweetie?"

"That thing you gave me… what does it i _do_ /i?" Evan asks. "It burned me!"

"Burned you?" Hope says narrowing her eyes further, "i _Richard_ /i-"

"It was not meant to cause harm." Richard says calmly, "It was merely a protection charm. I didn't know how long David's installation would take, and being around Miss Advika for extended periods of time is… unadvisable. You haven't met her, Hope, but it is not an experience that ever ends well."

Hope squeezes Richard's arm tightly, unhappy. "If she's so dangerous, I'm wondering what you were doing there in the first place?"

"You didn't really answer me." Evan cuts in. It's pretty obvious that some sort of argument is imminent, but he doesn't care. "How is burning me supposed to help me? It still kind of hurts."

That makes both Hope and Richard's faces wince slightly. "Well," Richard says, "it was a pretty generic charm, actually. Context sensitive, you might put it. It doesn't do anything specific so much as it does whatever it must to help you when you're in danger."

"And in what situation is 'burn him' a better option?" says Hope, glaring at Richard. Richard shrugs, deliberately turning his head back towards Evan, and Hope eventually follows the motion.

Evan says nothing. He instead stares at an undefined point past the couple.

The silence feels almost telling. The longer Evan says nothing, the less Hope looks angry and the more she looks concerned. She slowly lets go of Richard's arm and steps toward him, making him scoot further away in his seat. To her credit, Hope stops, but it her face shifts from concern straight to pity.

"What?!" Evan bites out.

Which wasn't exactly the smoothest thing he could have said.

Hope wrings her hands a little. "Look, I don't know anything about… David," she starts, "but if you're in some kind of trouble, we can help. No matter what's happening, no matter where you are, no matter when it happens."

Evan leans back skeptically.

"I know what it sounds like," she says sincerely, "but I mean it. We know very well that this world is… we know this world is filled with all sorts of people and all sorts of situations that I can't even begin to guess. But if you ever need help, we can help you. We're very clever like that. We play it by ear very well."

The way Hope is looking at him is starting to make him uncomfortable, so Evan stands up. Forgetting that the radio was in his lap, it falls to the ground. Richard waves a hand at him as he goes to pick it up and bends down to grab it for him. "That's a nice offer 'n' all, but I'll be fine. It was just an accident. I prolly woulda been fine anyway."

Richard shoots him an unconvinced look. "Such charms don't act on… false positives, my boy."

"Accidents can be very dangerous," says Hope, "so I'm still going to offer. You don't ever have to ask for our help. Just… something to keep in your back pocket, should there be trouble. No strings attached."

There's always strings. Maybe not intended ones, but they're there.

"No thanks. I better get going." He reaches for his radio back quietly, but Richard stops him with a hand on his shoulder. Evan looks up at him, scathing words ready, but Richard gently grabs his hand and places the radio back in it. He presses it against Evan's palm, holding Evan's hand between his for a second too long to be comfortable.

"Now now, boy," Richard says, staring Evan in the eye, "I understand that you may not want to ask for help from a couple of strangers. But my Hope is completely sincere. And if that is what she wishes, I too will do anything in my power to assist. Whether you trust or believe us or not."

Evan shivers as Richard drops his hand and spins on his heel back towards Hope, who automatically loops their arms together. "Now then, where were we?"

"We were talking about where we would like to go for vacation next year," says Hope, "since Scotland turned out to be a bit drearier than I really want while on vacation. I was trying to convince you to go tropical."

"Far too humid. My suit would be ruined. And today is a lovely day."

"So you said," Evan hears Hope say as they start walking out of hearing distance, "but I'm thinking we need to talk about iMiss Advika's Magic Shop of Horrors/i that you neglected to tell me about."

"The only thing horrifying in that place is Miss Advika herself."

"And how would iyou/i know?"

Evan walks in the opposite direction and disappears out of sight.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

Sam blew through the last couple of stops he had to make after what happened at the hardware store. He was perhaps a little more curt with some client than he ought to have been, but it's too late now. They'll just have to deal.

Once he's shaken off the rather unreasonably upset thugs of a less pleasant client, he hails a cab and directs the driver to Miss Advika's fortune telling shop. He mindlessly tosses a large bill at the driver as he exits the car, not even bothering to tell him to keep the change, and throws open the door to the building roughly. There's a man standing by the secretary's desk, disheveled and hunching over like the world is on his shoulders. His arms are crossed in a nervous posture, radiating fear and insecurity.

What a sorry looking sod.

"I'm sorry sir, but we're booked for the next week. Next Tuesday is the earliest appointment I can give you," says the blonde assistant.

"That won't work," the man says softly. "I need your help sooner than later."

"There's nothing we can do for you tonight, or until then," she says firmly.

The man sighs, not in annoyance, but like the air has to be forced from his lungs before he suffocates. "Okay. Tuesday then."

Sam zones out of the transaction from there, fingering his watchband. He mentally starts reviewing how his conversation will go. He's not happy about having to ask for Advika's help, much like she's not happy asking for his, but with Evan around he'd rather be safe than sorry. An ounce of prevention and all that.

He zones back in soon enough to notice how much the man's hand trembles as he signs his name on some paper for the assistant, who cheerfully hands him a reminder card with the date and time on it. He moves slowly, shuffling across the floor to the door, though he finds time to nod at Sam politely when he notices Sam staring. He closes the door behind him quietly.

What a imiserable/i looking sod.

Sam approaches the desk and looks the assistant square in the eye. "I heard what you told that guy about Advika being unavailable. I need to talk to her now."

The woman hums. "No special treatment, I'm afraid."

Sam rolls his eyes. "Either she speaks to me now or I make your life difficult for the foreseeable future."

"It already is," she says, tilting her head sympathetically.

Sam has already opened his mouth with an incredibly, unbelievably witty and persuasive reply when the woman sits in her chair. She must have sat a bit too suddenly, as a leg gives out and the woman squawks as she falls over. There's a dull iwhack/i as she hits her head on the corner of her desk, and Sam just stares at where she used to be for a moment before realizing that she isn't going to stand up. He hops around the desk and tries to get the bloody hair out of her face.

Yeah, she's out. Shit.

He pulls out his phone to call an ambulance when the sound of someone moving a curtain catches his attention. Peeking out from around the desk, Advika stares at him accusingly.

"Why are you back here? If you forgot to do something last time, I'm going to have to ask for my money back."

"I came here to pay iyou/i for a favor," he says, "but your assistant had a bit of a fall."

Advika's frown deepens, but she doesn't look remotely surprised. "Figures. Just leave her there, I'll deal with her. What do you want, Scudder?"

Sam stands up, taking a deep breath before looking Advika in the eye. "Last night, I had a breakthrough, of sorts. I was right. There is something living beyond the surface of a mirror. But, also as expected, it may not be friendly. I was wondering if you had any way to prevent it from reaching out to our world."

"I doubt that," Advika says flatly, "I'm telling you, nothing can survive there long term. My bet is you came across some sort of vengeful spirit. Or did you finally take my advice and hold a séance? I could have helped you keep things under control if it yelled at you. Spirits are fantastic at heckling idiots. It's always fun to watch. Better than any movie night."

"I will take no part in your hokey 'spiritual' nonsense."

"Hey, you're the one who came ihere/i for advice, numbnut."

"Old wives' tales have, historically, had a grain of truth in them," Sam says, "I'm only here for the sake of being ithoroughly/i careful." Advika snorts.

"If it's not a vengeful spirit, then I can't really help. My advice? It's a mirror, right? No light, nothing happens. Throw a blanket over it. A ireally/i thick one. I can tell you where I bought these curtains, if it helps."

Sam glares at her. It's a terribly simple solution but… yeah, that'd probably work. He's fairly certain that if there's no light, then a mirror is simply inert.

But what if it's i _not_ /i?

"I'll keep your suggestion in mind."

She just stares at him, unimpressed. Sam makes a pointed glance at the still-unconscious assistant, but Advika shrugs her shoulders and waves him toward the door. They part without a goodbye.

While the sun is almost set, it's at just the right angle to blind him momentarily as he walks out the door. After the initial pain, however, he realizes how dark it's getting, and Sam decides that he'll buy a couple sandwiches on the way home. He's not feeling up to trying to make anything today.

The shop is in a tiny, hole-in-the-wall place that was a few streets over from Advika's. Sam manages to catch the owner as he's getting ready to clean up shop and agrees to take whatever the old man has left on hand. This means that Sam leaves with four and a half sandwiches more than he needed, but that's certainly not the worst thing to happen today.

He's wondering whether he has anything that can prevent light from touching the glass. There may be a small shopping trip before he gets home.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

The shack is still an unsettling place to be by himself, but seeing as it's gotten dark Evan doesn't have to worry about his reflection. As much.

He flicks on a desk light as tries to at least look like he made progress on his robot today, but his mind wanders. His head hurts. His neck hurts too, still, but his head is pounding, and he decides to lay down. He can just tell Sam he felt too sick to do anything today.

The bedroom doesn't have anything on the walls he needs to worry about, anyway.

He barely manages to doze when the door is abruptly jammed against the bedframe; Evan hears a soft "icrap/i" before he opens an eye to watch Sam awkwardly shimmy through the doorway. Sam is much more careful when closing the door. He studies Evan from the foot of the bed for a moment before setting some bags on the floor and walking around to his bedside. He sits on the edge of the bed carefully and gently shakes Evan's shoulder. "Hey, you feeling okay?"

"Just a headache."

"Should've expected that, I guess. I brought food."

"Uh. Gimme a minute. What'd you get?"

"Just some sandwiches, nothing fancy. They're supposed to be pretty good, though. I'll set 'em on my desk for you."

"Mm."

Sam grabs his bags and heads into the main room. Evan relaxes, listening to the gentle clinking noises he's making. The sounds are light and hard to hear, and if it wasn't so quiet outside right now he doubts he'd be able to hear it at all.

He's disoriented when Sam wakes him by shaking his shoulder again. He blinks until his eyes focus on a water bottle. "It doesn't look like you drank anything today," Sam says, "which is probably a factor in that headache. Drink this."

Evan sits up so the water doesn't dribble down his face. "How'd you know that?"

"No cups in the sink, no bottle in the trash," Sam says. "It doesn't look like you ate anything today, either. You're welcome to the fridge, you know. Though not drinking is worse than not eating."

"You think so?"

"You're hard-pressed to drink too much water, it is pretty easy to eat too much."

"I don't think you ican/i drink too much water."

"Water poisoning, or rather water intoxication, is a real thing."

Evan stares up at him, looking for lies. "Water can't kill you unless you drown, I think. If it really is just water and not poisoned or alcohol or something."

Sam waves a hand at him dismissively. "Oh, it's a real thing, but difficult to do. You have to drink, say, a couple gallons in under an hour. It disrupts the body's delicate balance of water and electrolytes, causing the brain to swell. This is why professional athletes drink "electrolyte filled" drinks, rather than just water. Otherwise expect to be in great pain before you die."

Evan stares at Sam horrified.

"But it's ivery/i difficult to do!" says Sam, "Like I said, you'd essentially have to be trying to do it on purpose. Common sense will be able to tell you once you've had plenty to drink. A person should drink a few glasses a day. Dehydration headaches are the worst."

"I'm not dehydrated, though."

Sam purses his lips a bit and gently pinches the bridge between Evan's eyebrows. It doesn't hurt, but Evan frowns at it nonetheless. "Don't do that!"

"I'm checking to see if you are dehydrated," Sam says easily, "which you are. If there's a delay in how long it takes for the color to return to your brow after you pinch it, you need to drink more water. So drink."

"…I don't believe that's real."

"It is. I'd show you, but I already took all the mirrors off the walls."

Evan perks up at that. "What, really?"

"Yep. Probably should've taken them off before I left this morning, but… well, I didn't think about it. But it worked out all right. I'm fairly certain you're real and alive."

Evan hops out of bed and walks into the main room where, sure enough, the walls have been completely cleared of mirrors, glass, and anything that reflects. It makes the room feel uncomfortably bare, even though there's furniture and equipment everywhere. Everything seems to have been added to the pile zone of the room, as there's a heavy-looking, lumpy blanket tower that wasn't there before.

"If you're wondering about the blanket, there are no reflections without light. Whatever grabbed you shouldn't be able to so now."

It seems almost deceptively simple when put like that, insulting really. But Evan understands the logic. If it keeps that thing at bay, he'll take it. iBut./i

"Why not just get rid of it all?"

"Well," Sam says, bringing his hand to his chin, "remember when I told you how the best projects are my own? This sort of thing is… my life's work. It's the kind of project I never tire of."

Evan frowns, staring at the blanket uneasily. But he eventually he leans back, looking at Sam upside down and says, "If I hadn't been attacked by it personally, I'd call you dumb."

Sam chokes on a snort, torn between amusement and offense. But Evan twists around to see him. "If you made this stuff, then do you know what that thing was?"

"I didn't imake/i it. There's a lot of things I don't understand yet, unfortunately. I understand far more than anyone else, but lately there have been a few atypical events regarding my work. That's the biggest one so far. You seem to be a bit of a magnet for it."

Not quite awkward silence falls over them. Sam's words aren't comforting, per se. He basically admitted to knowing fuck all about that thing, what it was, what it iwanted/i. Is he going to spend the rest of his life afraid of his reflection? Maybe that thing only exists in the glass that Sam has used for his projects… whatever they are.

"What exactly do you do? I mean, a mirror doesn't really do anything but be really shiny. And kind of hang there. Miss McCulloch had a grandfather clock whose glass melted a little because it was old. I mean, that's why she said it was lumpy at the bottom. But that's lame. It wasn't even that shiny."

"Older methods of glass succumb to gravity; the sand granules aren't actually held in a permanently solid state, meaning that it can 'melt' a bit if it's not rotated. But that has little to do with me. It doesn't have to be glass, something just has to reflect for me to use it."

"Use it how?!"

Sam fiddles with his watch a bit. "Many things. More things than a simple conversation could really explain. Let's table that thought for a day I'm not so tired, alright? We still need to eat, even if dinner is late. It's been a long day."

His reluctance isn't endearing him to Evan at the moment, who narrows his eyes at Sam. But Evan isn't a smooth enough talker to trick the answers out of him. So instead of asking what the hell he was not talking about, Evan asks "Do we have a TV in this place? I don't really feel like talking either. M'tired."

"Yep. You get the food out, I set it up?"

One extension cord and one cleared work desk later, Sam manages to get an old, downright rusty box TV set up relatively close to the couch. There's so many metal bits poking out of the right side that Evan's amazed it isn't falling over. The visuals are crap, the audio is crap, but curling up on opposing ends of the couch comes surprisingly natural to the both of them. Sam forces a water bottle between him and the arm of the couch but they forego plates, balancing the wrapping paper from their sandwiches on their legs and leaning forward slightly to eat. They catch the tail end of a French movie with surreal visuals neither of them understand and the middle portion of some terrible comedy. Sam revokes Evan's right to use the remote. He kicks Sam's leg when he switches to the local news, but Sam doesn't dignify his pathetic attempts at annoying him.

He's practically fallen asleep on the couch when the news actually catches his attention.

"-while there has yet to be an official statement from the police on the nature of Mr. Benson's unfortunate demise, those living in the area are expressing great concern for local safety. Rumors have been circulating that Mr. Benson's death may be related to the recent disappearances, which have been centralized in the eastern portion of the town. However, the disappearances themselves have not officially been related to each other.

"Nonetheless, today city officials and police were under fire for a presumed lack of interest in solving these disappearances. Anti-consumerist group Green House and Homeland president, Marcas Maddox, released a statement today accusing the police of ignoring these disappearances as part of a plot to slowly drive families, and thus small, home-owned businesses out of town as a means to allow national and international corporations free reign of the area with minimal resistance."

Sam snorts. "There's far less obtuse ways of doing that. That'd be a terrible plan."

"Why not?"

"Well, those 'big corporations' would still want people to come back and buy their products and use their business, wouldn't they? Maybe, possibly, if all of the disappearances and," Sam hesitates, "Mr. Benson's death were in the same block, it could be a property thing, but as it stands? Too haphazard. I doubt iall/i of them are related."

The screen cuts to a very official-looking woman in front of a small crowd. "While it is too early to pose some sort of direct correlation between the disappearances of the Hedleys, the Friars, and the Stroud boys, I have been assured that we are looking into any possible connections or clues, no matter how slight. I also want to stress that while we have been investigating quietly, all of these cases have been actively pursued since the very beginning and have been treated with due seriousness. Currently, there is no proof that Mr. Benson's death is in any way related to these disappearances and is being treated as an unrelated homicide."

"W-why would they assume all those disappearances are related? And what would a dead guy have to do with it?"

Sam doesn't look away from the TV, turning the volume down as a local woman is interviewed. "This town, while having its bad parts, is a predictable sort of bad. You get break-ins and muggings, and disappearances are typically teenagers or kids running away from home." Evan cringes slightly. "But it seems in the past couple months," Sam squints at the little chart that appears on screen, "that at least 7 people have disappeared in the eastern part of town. One of them being you, of course."

Both of them are distracted as the footage cuts to a terribly shot video depicting a local creek. There's a team of people seemingly trying to drag something out of the water.

"And seeing how ithat/i is the second body to turn up today," Sam says flatly, "I don't think I have to explain to you why people are nervous."


End file.
